Discourse 5. Knowledge its Own End

{99} A UNIVERSITY may be considered with reference either to its
Students or to its Studies; and the principle, that all Knowledge is a
whole and the separate Sciences parts of one, which I have hitherto
been using in behalf of its studies, is equally important when we
direct our attention to its students. Now then I turn to the students,
and shall consider the education which, by virtue of this principle, a
University will give them; and thus I shall be introduced, Gentlemen,
to the second question, which I proposed to discuss, viz., whether and
in what sense its teaching, viewed relatively to the taught, carries
the attribute of Utility along with it.

1.

I have said that all branches of knowledge are connected together,
because the subject-matter of knowledge is intimately united in
itself, as being the acts and the work of the Creator. Hence it is
that the Sciences, into which our knowledge may be said to be cast,
have multiplied bearings one on another, and an internal sympathy, and
admit, or rather demand, comparison and adjustment. They complete,
correct, balance each other. This consideration, if well-founded, must
be taken into account, not only as regards the attainment of truth,
which is {100} their common end, but as regards the influence which
they exercise upon those whose education consists in the study of
them. I have said already, that to give undue prominence to one is to
be unjust to another; to neglect or supersede these is to divert those
from their proper object. It is to unsettle the boundary lines between
science and science, to disturb their action, to destroy the harmony
which binds them together. Such a proceeding will have a corresponding
effect when introduced into a place of education. There is no science
but tells a different tale, when viewed as a portion of a whole, from
what it is likely to suggest when taken by itself, without the
safeguard, as I may call it, of others.

Let me make use of an illustration. In the combination of colours,
very different effects are produced by a difference in their selection
and juxtaposition; red, green, and white, change their shades,
according to the contrast to which they are submitted. And, in like
manner, the drift and meaning of a branch of knowledge varies with the
company in which it is introduced to the student. If his reading is
confined simply to one subject, however such division of labour may
favour the advancement of a particular pursuit, a point into which I
do not here enter, certainly it has a tendency to contract his mind.
If it is incorporated with others, it depends on those others as to
the kind of influence which it exerts upon him. Thus the Classics,
which in England are the means of refining the taste, have in France
subserved the spread of revolutionary and deistical doctrines. In
Metaphysics, again, Butler's Analogy of Religion, which has had so
much to do with the conversion to the Catholic faith of members of the
University of Oxford, appeared to Pitt and others, who had received a
different training, to operate only in the direction of infidelity.
And so again, Watson, Bishop {101} of Llandaff, as I think he tells us
in the narrative of his life, felt the science of Mathematics to
indispose the mind to religious belief, while others see in its
investigations the best parallel, and thereby defence, of the
Christian Mysteries. In like manner, I suppose, Arcesilas would not
have handled logic as Aristotle, nor Aristotle have criticized poets
as Plato; yet reasoning and poetry are subject to scientific rules.

It is a great point then to enlarge the range of studies which a
University professes, even for the sake of the students; and, though
they cannot pursue every subject which is open to them, they will be
the gainers by living among those and under those who represent the
whole circle. This I conceive to be the advantage of a seat of
universal learning, considered as a place of education. An assemblage
of learned men, zealous for their own sciences, and rivals of each
other, are brought, by familiar intercourse and for the sake of
intellectual peace, to adjust together the claims and relations of
their respective subjects of investigation. They learn to respect, to
consult, to aid each other. Thus is created a pure and clear
atmosphere of thought, which the student also breathes, though in his
own case he only pursues a few sciences out of the multitude. He
profits by an intellectual tradition, which is independent of
particular teachers, which guides him in his choice of subjects, and
duly interprets for him those which he chooses. He apprehends the
great outlines of knowledge, the principles on which it rests, the
scale of its parts, its lights and its shades, its great points and
its little, as he otherwise cannot apprehend them. Hence it is that
his education is called "Liberal." A habit of mind is formed
which lasts through life, of which the attributes are, freedom,
equitableness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom; or {102} what in a
former Discourse I have ventured to call a philosophical habit. This
then I would assign as the special fruit of the education furnished at
a University, as contrasted with other places of teaching or modes of
teaching. This is the main purpose of a University in its treatment of
its students.

And now the question is asked me, What is the use of it? and
my answer will constitute the main subject of the Discourses which are
to follow.

2.

Cautious and practical thinkers, I say, will ask of me, what, after
all, is the gain of this Philosophy, of which I make such account, and
from which I promise so much. Even supposing it to enable us to
exercise the degree of trust exactly due to every science
respectively, and to estimate precisely the value of every truth which
is anywhere to be found, how are we better for this master view of
things, which I have been extolling? Does it not reverse the principle
of the division of labour? will practical objects be obtained better
or worse by its cultivation? to what then does it lead? where does it
end? what does it do? how does it profit? what does it promise?
Particular sciences are respectively the basis of definite arts, which
carry on to results tangible and beneficial the truths which are the
subjects of the knowledge attained; what is the Art of this science of
sciences? what is the fruit of such a Philosophy? what are we
proposing to effect, what inducements do we hold out to the Catholic
community, when we set about the enterprise of founding a University?

I am asked what is the end of University Education, and of the
Liberal or Philosophical Knowledge which I conceive it to impart: I
answer, that what I have already {103} said has been sufficient to
show that it has a very tangible, real, and sufficient end, though the
end cannot be divided from that knowledge itself. Knowledge is capable
of being its own end. Such is the constitution of the human mind, that
any kind of knowledge, if it be really such, is its own reward. And if
this is true of all knowledge, it is true also of that special
Philosophy, which I have made to consist in a comprehensive view of
truth in all its branches, of the relations of science to science, of
their mutual bearings, and their respective values. What the worth of
such an acquirement is, compared with other objects which we seek,—wealth
or power or honour or the conveniences and comforts of life, I do not
profess here to discuss; but I would maintain, and mean to show, that
it is an object, in its own nature so really and undeniably good, as
to be the compensation of a great deal of thought in the compassing,
and a great deal of trouble in the attaining.

Now, when I say that Knowledge is, not merely a means to something
beyond it, or the preliminary of certain arts into which it naturally
resolves, but an end sufficient to rest in and to pursue for its own
sake, surely I am uttering no paradox, for I am stating what is both
intelligible in itself, and has ever been the common judgment of
philosophers and the ordinary feeling of mankind. I am saying what at
least the public opinion of this day ought to be slow to deny,
considering how much we have heard of late years, in opposition to
Religion, of entertaining, curious, and various knowledge. I am but
saying what whole volumes have been written to illustrate, viz., by a
"selection from the records of Philosophy, Literature, and Art,
in all ages and countries, of a body of examples, to show how the most
unpropitious circumstances have been unable to conquer an ardent {104}
desire for the acquisition of knowledge." [Note
1] That further advantages accrue to us and redound to others
by its possession, over and above what it is in itself, I am very far
indeed from denying; but, independent of these, we are satisfying a
direct need of our nature in its very acquisition; and, whereas our
nature, unlike that of the inferior creation, does not at once reach
its perfection, but depends, in order to it, on a number of external
aids and appliances, Knowledge, as one of the principal of these, is
valuable for what its very presence in us does for us after the manner
of a habit, even though it be turned to no further account, nor
subserve any direct end.

3.

Hence it is that Cicero, in enumerating the various heads of mental
excellence, lays down the pursuit of Knowledge for its own sake, as
the first of them. "This pertains most of all to human
nature," he says, "for we are all of us drawn to the pursuit
of Knowledge; in which to excel we consider excellent, whereas to
mistake, to err, to be ignorant, to be deceived, is both an evil and a
disgrace." [Note
2] And he considers Knowledge the very first object to which we
are attracted, after the supply of our physical wants. After the calls
and duties of our animal existence, as they may be termed, as regards
ourselves, our family, and our neighbours, follows, he tells us,
"the search after truth. Accordingly, as soon as we escape from
the pressure of necessary cares, forthwith we desire to see, to hear,
and to learn; and consider the knowledge of what is hidden or is
wonderful a condition of our happiness." {105}

This passage, though it is but one of many similar passages in a
multitude of authors, I take for the very reason that it is so
familiarly known to us; and I wish you to observe, Gentlemen, how
distinctly it separates the pursuit of Knowledge from those ulterior
objects to which certainly it can be made to conduce, and which are, I
suppose, solely contemplated by the persons who would ask of me the
use of a University or Liberal Education. So far from dreaming of the
cultivation of Knowledge directly and mainly in order to our physical
comfort and enjoyment, for the sake of life and person, of health, of
the conjugal and family union, of the social tie and civil security,
the great Orator implies, that it is only after our physical and
political needs are supplied, and when we are "free from
necessary duties and cares," that we are in a condition for
"desiring to see, to hear, and to learn." Nor does he
contemplate in the least degree the reflex or subsequent action of
Knowledge, when acquired, upon those material goods which we set out
by securing before we seek it; on the contrary, he expressly denies
its bearing upon social life altogether, strange as such a procedure
is to those who live after the rise of the Baconian philosophy, and he
cautions us against such a cultivation of it as will interfere with
our duties to our fellow-creatures. "All these methods," he
says, "are engaged in the investigation of truth; by the pursuit
of which to be carried off from public occupations is a transgression
of duty. For the praise of virtue lies altogether in action; yet
intermissions often occur, and then we recur to such pursuits; not to
say that the incessant activity of the mind is vigorous enough to
carry us on in the pursuit of knowledge, even without any exertion of
our own." The idea of benefiting society by means of "the
pursuit of science and knowledge" {106} did not enter at all into
the motives which he would assign for their cultivation.

This was the ground of the opposition which the elder Cato made to
the introduction of Greek Philosophy among his countrymen, when
Carneades and his companions, on occasion of their embassy, were
charming the Roman youth with their eloquent expositions of it. The
fit representative of a practical people, Cato estimated every thing
by what it produced; whereas the Pursuit of Knowledge promised nothing
beyond Knowledge itself. He despised that refinement or enlargement of
mind of which he had no experience.

4.

Things, which can bear to be cut off from every thing else and yet
persist in living, must have life in themselves; pursuits, which issue
in nothing, and still maintain their ground for ages, which are
regarded as admirable, though they have not as yet proved themselves
to be useful, must have their sufficient end in themselves, whatever
it turn out to be. And we are brought to the same conclusion by
considering the force of the epithet, by which the knowledge under
consideration is popularly designated. It is common to speak of "liberal
knowledge," of the "liberal arts and studies,"
and of a "liberal education," as the especial
characteristic or property of a University and of a gentleman; what is
really meant by the word? Now, first, in its grammatical sense it is
opposed to servile; and by "servile work" is
understood, as our catechisms inform us, bodily labour, mechanical
employment, and the like, in which the mind has little or no part.
Parallel to such servile works are those arts, if they deserve the
name, of which the poet speaks [Note
3], {107} which owe their origin and their method to hazard, not to
skill; as, for instance, the practice and operations of an empiric. As
far as this contrast may be considered as a guide into the meaning of
the word, liberal education and liberal pursuits are exercises of
mind, of reason, of reflection.

But we want something more for its explanation, for there are
bodily exercises which are liberal, and mental exercises which are not
so. For instance, in ancient times the practitioners in medicine were
commonly slaves; yet it was an art as intellectual in its nature, in
spite of the pretence, fraud, and quackery with which it might then,
as now, be debased, as it was heavenly in its aim. And so in like
manner, we contrast a liberal education with a commercial education or
a professional; yet no one can deny that commerce and the professions
afford scope for the highest and most diversified powers of mind.
There is then a great variety of intellectual exercises, which are not
technically called "liberal;" on the other hand, I say,
there are exercises of the body which do receive that appellation.
Such, for instance, was the palæstra, in ancient times; such the
Olympic games, in which strength and dexterity of body as well as of
mind gained the prize. In Xenophon we read of the young Persian
nobility being taught to ride on horseback and to speak the truth;
both being among the accomplishments of a gentleman. War, too, however
rough a profession, has ever been accounted liberal, unless in cases
when it becomes heroic, which would introduce us to another subject.

Now comparing these instances together, we shall have no difficulty
in determining the principle of this apparent variation in the
application of the term which I am examining. Manly games, or games of
skill, or {108} military prowess, though bodily, are, it seems,
accounted liberal; on the other hand, what is merely professional,
though highly intellectual, nay, though liberal in comparison of trade
and manual labour, is not simply called liberal, and mercantile
occupations are not liberal at all. Why this distinction? because that
alone is liberal knowledge, which stands on its own pretensions, which
is independent of sequel, expects no complement, refuses to be informed
(as it is called) by any end, or absorbed into any art, in order duly
to present itself to our contemplation. The most ordinary pursuits
have this specific character, if they are self-sufficient and
complete; the highest lose it, when they minister to something beyond
them. It is absurd to balance, in point of worth and importance, a
treatise on reducing fractures with a game of cricket or a fox-chase;
yet of the two the bodily exercise has that quality which we call
"liberal," and the intellectual has it not. And so of the
learned professions altogether, considered merely as professions;
although one of them be the most popularly beneficial, and another the
most politically important, and the third the most intimately divine
of all human pursuits, yet the very greatness of their end, the health
of the body, or of the commonwealth, or of the soul, diminishes, not
increases, their claim to the appellation "liberal," and
that still more, if they are cut down to the strict exigencies of that
end. If, for instance, Theology, instead of being cultivated as a
contemplation, be limited to the purposes of the pulpit or be
represented by the catechism, it loses,—not its usefulness, not its
divine character, not its meritoriousness (rather it gains a claim
upon these titles by such charitable condescension),—but it does
lose the particular attribute which I am illustrating; just as a face
worn by tears and fasting loses its beauty, or a {109} labourer's hand
loses its delicateness;—for Theology thus exercised is not simple
knowledge, but rather is an art or a business making use of Theology.
And thus it appears that even what is supernatural need not be
liberal, nor need a hero be a gentleman, for the plain reason that one
idea is not another idea. And in like manner the Baconian Philosophy,
by using its physical sciences in the service of man, does thereby
transfer them from the order of Liberal Pursuits to, I do not say the
inferior, but the distinct class of the Useful. And, to take a
different instance, hence again, as is evident, whenever personal gain
is the motive, still more distinctive an effect has it upon the
character of a given pursuit; thus racing, which was a liberal
exercise in Greece, forfeits its rank in times like these, so far as
it is made the occasion of gambling.

All that I have been now saying is summed up in a few
characteristic words of the great Philosopher. "Of
possessions," he says, "those rather are useful, which bear
fruit; those liberal, which tend to enjoyment. By fruitful, I
mean, which yield revenue; by enjoyable, where nothing accrues of
consequence beyond the using." [Note
4]

5.

Do not suppose, that in thus appealing to the ancients, I am
throwing back the world two thousand years, and fettering Philosophy
with the reasonings of paganism. While the world lasts, will Aristotle's
doctrine on these matters last, for he is the oracle of nature and of
truth. While we are men, we cannot help, to a great extent, being
Aristotelians, for the great Master does but analyze the thoughts,
feelings, views, and opinions of human kind. He has told us the
meaning of our own words and ideas, {110} before we were born. In many
subject-matters, to think correctly, is to think like Aristotle; and
we are his disciples whether we will or no, though we may not know it.
Now, as to the particular instance before us, the word
"liberal" as applied to Knowledge and Education, expresses a
specific idea, which ever has been, and ever will be, while the nature
of man is the same, just as the idea of the Beautiful is specific, or
of the Sublime, or of the Ridiculous, or of the Sordid. It is in the
world now, it was in the world then; and, as in the case of the dogmas
of faith, it is illustrated by a continuous historical tradition, and
never was out of the world, from the time it came into it. There have
indeed been differences of opinion from time to time, as to what
pursuits and what arts came under that idea, but such differences are
but an additional evidence of its reality. That idea must have a
substance in it, which has maintained its ground amid these conflicts
and changes, which has ever served as a standard to measure things
withal, which has passed from mind to mind unchanged, when there was
so much to colour, so much to influence any notion or thought
whatever, which was not founded in our very nature. Were it a mere
generalization, it would have varied with the subjects from which it
was generalized; but though its subjects vary with the age, it varies
not itself. The palæstra may seem a liberal exercise to Lycurgus, and
illiberal to Seneca; coach-driving and prize-fighting may be
recognized in Elis, and be condemned in England; music may be
despicable in the eyes of certain moderns, and be in the highest place
with Aristotle and Plato,—(and the case is the same in the
particular application of the idea of Beauty, or of Goodness, or of
Moral Virtue, there is a difference of tastes, a difference of
judgments)—still these variations {111} imply, instead of
discrediting, the archetypal idea, which is but a previous hypothesis
or condition, by means of which issue is joined between contending
opinions, and without which there would be nothing to dispute about.

I consider, then, that I am chargeable with no paradox, when I
speak of a Knowledge which is its own end, when I call it liberal
knowledge, or a gentleman's knowledge, when I educate for it, and make
it the scope of a University. And still less am I incurring such a
charge, when I make this acquisition consist, not in Knowledge in a
vague and ordinary sense, but in that Knowledge which I have
especially called Philosophy or, in an extended sense of the word,
Science; for whatever claims Knowledge has to be considered as a good,
these it has in a higher degree when it is viewed not vaguely, not
popularly, but precisely and transcendently as Philosophy. Knowledge,
I say, is then especially liberal, or sufficient for itself, apart
from every external and ulterior object, when and so far as it is
philosophical, and this I proceed to show.

6.

Now bear with me, Gentlemen, if what I am about to say, has at
first sight a fanciful appearance. Philosophy, then, or Science, is
related to Knowledge in this way:—Knowledge is called by the name of
Science or Philosophy, when it is acted upon, informed, or if I may
use a strong figure, impregnated by Reason. Reason is the principle of
that intrinsic fecundity of Knowledge, which, to those who possess it,
is its especial value, and which dispenses with the necessity of their
looking abroad for any end to rest upon external to itself. Knowledge,
indeed, when thus exalted into a scientific form, is also {112} power;
not only is it excellent in itself, but whatever such excellence may
be, it is something more, it has a result beyond itself. Doubtless;
but that is a further consideration, with which I am not concerned. I
only say that, prior to its being a power, it is a good; that it is,
not only an instrument, but an end. I know well it may resolve itself
into an art, and terminate in a mechanical process, and in tangible
fruit; but it also may fall back upon that Reason which informs it,
and resolve itself into Philosophy. In one case it is called Useful
Knowledge, in the other Liberal. The same person may cultivate it in
both ways at once; but this again is a matter foreign to my subject;
here I do but say that there are two ways of using Knowledge, and in
matter of fact those who use it in one way are not likely to use it in
the other, or at least in a very limited measure. You see, then, here
are two methods of Education; the end of the one is to be
philosophical, of the other to be mechanical; the one rises towards
general ideas, the other is exhausted upon what is particular and
external. Let me not be thought to deny the necessity, or to decry the
benefit, of such attention to what is particular and practical, as
belongs to the useful or mechanical arts; life could not go on without
them; we owe our daily welfare to them; their exercise is the duty of
the many, and we owe to the many a debt of gratitude for fulfilling
that duty. I only say that Knowledge, in proportion as it tends more
and more to be particular, ceases to be Knowledge. It is a question
whether Knowledge can in any proper sense be predicated of the brute
creation; without pretending to metaphysical exactness of phraseology,
which would be unsuitable to an occasion like this, I say, it seems to
me improper to call that passive sensation, or perception of things,
which brutes seem to {113} possess, by the name of Knowledge. When I
speak of Knowledge, I mean something intellectual, something which
grasps what it perceives through the senses; something which takes a
view of things; which sees more than the senses convey; which reasons
upon what it sees, and while it sees; which invests it with an idea.
It expresses itself, not in a mere enunciation, but by an enthymeme:
it is of the nature of science from the first, and in this consists
its dignity. The principle of real dignity in Knowledge, its worth,
its desirableness, considered irrespectively of its results, is this
germ within it of a scientific or a philosophical process. This is how
it comes to be an end in itself; this is why it admits of being called
Liberal. Not to know the relative disposition of things is the state
of slaves or children; to have mapped out the Universe is the boast,
or at least the ambition, of Philosophy.

Moreover, such knowledge is not a mere extrinsic or accidental
advantage, which is ours today and another's tomorrow, which may be
got up from a book, and easily forgotten again, which we can command
or communicate at our pleasure, which we can borrow for the occasion,
carry about in our hand, and take into the market; it is an acquired
illumination, it is a habit, a personal possession, and an inward
endowment. And this is the reason, why it is more correct, as well as
more usual, to speak of a University as a place of education, than of
instruction, though, when knowledge is concerned, instruction would at
first sight have seemed the more appropriate word. We are instructed,
for instance, in manual exercises, in the fine and useful arts, in
trades, and in ways of business; for these are methods, which have
little or no effect upon the mind itself, are contained in rules
committed to memory, to tradition, or to use, {114} and bear upon an
end external to themselves. But education is a higher word; it implies
an action upon our mental nature, and the formation of a character; it
is something individual and permanent, and is commonly spoken of in
connexion with religion and virtue. When, then, we speak of the
communication of Knowledge as being Education, we thereby really imply
that that Knowledge is a state or condition of mind; and since
cultivation of mind is surely worth seeking for its own sake, we are
thus brought once more to the conclusion, which the word
"Liberal" and the word "Philosophy" have already
suggested, that there is a Knowledge, which is desirable, though
nothing come of it, as being of itself a treasure, and a sufficient
remuneration of years of labour.

7.

This, then, is the answer which I am prepared to give to the
question with which I opened this Discourse. Before going on to speak
of the object of the Church in taking up Philosophy, and the uses to
which she puts it, I am prepared to maintain that Philosophy is its
own end, and, as I conceive, I have now begun the proof of it. I am
prepared to maintain that there is a knowledge worth possessing for
what it is, and not merely for what it does; and what minutes remain
to me today I shall devote to the removal of some portion of the
indistinctness and confusion with which the subject may in some minds
be surrounded.

It may be objected then, that, when we profess to seek Knowledge
for some end or other beyond itself, whatever it be, we speak
intelligibly; but that, whatever men may have said, however
obstinately the idea may have kept its ground from age to age, still
it is {115} simply unmeaning to say that we seek Knowledge for its own
sake, and for nothing else; for that it ever leads to something beyond
itself, which therefore is its end, and the cause why it is desirable;—moreover,
that this end is twofold, either of this world or of the next; that
all knowledge is cultivated either for secular objects or for eternal;
that if it is directed to secular objects, it is called Useful
Knowledge, if to eternal, Religious or Christian Knowledge;—in
consequence, that if, as I have allowed, this Liberal Knowledge does
not benefit the body or estate, it ought to benefit the soul; but if
the fact be really so, that it is neither a physical or a secular good
on the one hand, nor a moral good on the other, it cannot be a good at
all, and is not worth the trouble which is necessary for its
acquisition.

And then I may be reminded that the professors of this Liberal or
Philosophical Knowledge have themselves, in every age, recognized this
exposition of the matter, and have submitted to the issue in which it
terminates; for they have ever been attempting to make men virtuous;
or, if not, at least have assumed that refinement of mind was virtue,
and that they themselves were the virtuous portion of mankind. This
they have professed on the one hand; and on the other, they have
utterly failed in their professions, so as ever to make themselves a
proverb among men, and a laughing-stock both to the grave and the
dissipated portion of mankind, in consequence of them. Thus they have
furnished against themselves both the ground and the means of their
own exposure, without any trouble at all to any one else. In a word,
from the time that Athens was the University of the world, what has
Philosophy taught men, but to promise without practising, and to
aspire without attaining? What has the deep and lofty thought of its
disciples ended in but {116} eloquent words? Nay, what has its
teaching ever meditated, when it was boldest in its remedies for human
ill, beyond charming us to sleep by its lessons, that we might feel
nothing at all? like some melodious air, or rather like those strong
and transporting perfumes, which at first spread their sweetness over
every thing they touch, but in a little while do but offend in
proportion as they once pleased us. Did Philosophy support Cicero
under the disfavour of the fickle populace, or nerve Seneca to oppose
an imperial tyrant? It abandoned Brutus, as he sorrowfully confessed,
in his greatest need, and it forced Cato, as his panegyrist strangely
boasts, into the false position of defying heaven. How few can be
counted among its professors, who, like Polemo, were thereby converted
from a profligate course, or like Anaxagoras, thought the world well
lost in exchange for its possession? The philosopher in Rasselas
taught a superhuman doctrine, and then succumbed without an effort to
a trial of human affection.

"He discoursed," we are told, "with great energy on
the government of the passions. His look was venerable, his action
graceful, his pronunciation clear, and his diction elegant. He showed,
with great strength of sentiment and variety of illustration, that
human nature is degraded and debased, when the lower faculties
predominate over the higher. He communicated the various precepts
given, from time to time, for the conquest of passion, and displayed
the happiness of those who had obtained the important victory, after
which man is no longer the slave of fear, nor the fool of hope … He
enumerated many examples of heroes immoveable by pain or pleasure, who
looked with indifference on those modes or accidents to which the
vulgar give the names of good and evil." {117}

Rasselas in a few days found the philosopher in a room half
darkened, with his eyes misty, and his face pale. "Sir,"
said he, "you have come at a time when all human friendship is
useless; what I suffer cannot be remedied, what I have lost cannot be
supplied. My daughter, my only daughter, from whose tenderness I
expected all the comforts of my age, died last night of a fever."
"Sir," said the prince, "mortality is an event by which
a wise man can never be surprised; we know that death is always near,
and it should therefore always be expected." "Young
man," answered the philosopher, "you speak like one who has
never felt the pangs of separation." "Have you, then, forgot
the precept," said Rasselas, "which you so powerfully
enforced? ... consider that external things are naturally variable,
but truth and reason are always the same." "What
comfort," said the mourner, "can truth and reason afford me?
Of what effect are they now, but to tell me that my daughter will not
be restored?"

8.

Better, far better, to make no professions, you will say, than to
cheat others with what we are not, and to scandalize them with what we
are. The sensualist, or the man of the world, at any rate is not the
victim of fine words, but pursues a reality and gains it. The
Philosophy of Utility, you will say, Gentlemen, has at least done its
work; and I grant it,—it aimed low, but it has fulfilled its aim. If
that man of great intellect who has been its Prophet in the conduct of
life played false to his own professions, he was not bound by his
philosophy to be true to his friend or faithful in his trust. Moral
virtue was not the line in which he undertook to instruct men; and
though, as the poet calls him, he were the {118} "meanest"
of mankind, he was so in what may be called his private capacity and
without any prejudice to the theory of induction. He had a right to be
so, if he chose, for any thing that the Idols of the den or the
theatre had to say to the contrary. His mission was the increase of
physical enjoyment and social comfort [Note
5]; and most wonderfully, most awfully has he fulfilled his
conception and his design. Almost day by day have we fresh and fresh
shoots, and buds, and blossoms, which are to ripen into fruit, on that
magical tree of Knowledge which he planted, and to which none of us
perhaps, except the very poor, but owes, if not his present life, at
least his daily food, his health, and general well-being. He was the
divinely provided minister of temporal benefits to all of us so great,
that, whatever I am forced to think of him as a man, I have not the
heart, from mere gratitude, to speak of him severely. And, in spite of
the tendencies of his philosophy, which are, as we see at this day, to
depreciate, or to trample on Theology, he has himself, in his
writings, gone out of his way, as if with a prophetic misgiving of
those tendencies, to insist on it as the instrument of that beneficent
Father [Note
6], who, when He came on earth in visible form, took on Him first
and most prominently {119} the office of assuaging the bodily wounds
of human nature. And truly, like the old mediciner in the tale,
"he sat diligently at his work, and hummed, with cheerful
countenance, a pious song;" and then in turn "went out
singing into the meadows so gaily, that those who had seen him from
afar might well have thought it was a youth gathering flowers for his
beloved, instead of an old physician gathering healing herbs in the
morning dew." [Note 7]

Alas, that men, in the action of life or in their heart of hearts,
are not what they seem to be in their moments of excitement, or in
their trances or intoxications of genius,—so good, so noble, so
serene! Alas, that Bacon too in his own way should after all be but
the fellow of those heathen philosophers who in their disadvantages
had some excuse for their inconsistency, and who surprise us rather in
what they did say than in what they did not do! Alas, that he too,
like Socrates or Seneca, must be stripped of his holy-day coat, which
looks so fair, and should be but a mockery amid his most majestic
gravity of phrase; and, for all his vast abilities, should, in the
littleness of his own moral being, but typify the intellectual
narrowness of his school! However, granting all this, heroism after
all was not his philosophy:—I cannot deny he has abundantly achieved
what he proposed. His is simply a Method whereby bodily discomforts
and temporal wants are to be most effectually removed from the
greatest number; and already, before it has shown any signs of
exhaustion, the gifts of nature, in their most artificial shapes and
luxurious profusion and diversity, from all quarters of the earth,
are, it is undeniable, by its means brought even to our doors, and we rejoice in them.

9.

{120} Useful Knowledge then, I grant, has done its work; and
Liberal Knowledge as certainly has not done its work,—that is,
supposing, as the objectors assume, its direct end, like Religious
Knowledge, is to make men better; but this I will not for an instant
allow, and, unless I allow it, those objectors have said nothing to
the purpose. I admit, rather I maintain, what they have been urging,
for I consider Knowledge to have its end in itself. For all its
friends, or its enemies, may say, I insist upon it, that it is as real
a mistake to burden it with virtue or religion as with the mechanical
arts. Its direct business is not to steel the soul against temptation
or to console it in affliction, any more than to set the loom in
motion, or to direct the steam carriage; be it ever so much the means
or the condition of both material and moral advancement, still, taken
by and in itself, it as little mends our hearts as it improves our
temporal circumstances. And if its eulogists claim for it such a
power, they commit the very same kind of encroachment on a province
not their own as the political economist who should maintain that his
science educated him for casuistry or diplomacy. Knowledge is one
thing, virtue is another; good sense is not conscience, refinement is
not humility, nor is largeness and justness of view faith. Philosophy,
however enlightened, however profound, gives no command over the
passions, no influential motives, no vivifying principles. Liberal
Education makes not the Christian, not the Catholic, but the
gentleman. It is well to be a gentlemen, it is well to have a
cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid, equitable,
dispassionate mind, a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct of
life;—these are the {121} connatural qualities of a large knowledge;
they are the objects of a University; I am advocating, I shall
illustrate and insist upon them; but still, I repeat, they are no
guarantee for sanctity or even for conscientiousness, they may attach
to the man of the world, to the profligate, to the heartless,—pleasant,
alas, and attractive as he shows when decked out in them. Taken by
themselves, they do but seem to be what they are not; they look like
virtue at a distance, but they are detected by close observers, and on
the long run; and hence it is that they are popularly accused of
pretence and hypocrisy, not, I repeat, from their own fault, but
because their professors and their admirers persist in taking them for
what they are not, and are officious in arrogating for them a praise
to which they have no claim. Quarry the granite rock with razors, or
moor the vessel with a thread of silk; then may you hope with such
keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason to
contend against those giants, the passion and the pride of man.

Surely we are not driven to theories of this kind, in order to
vindicate the value and dignity of Liberal Knowledge. Surely the real
grounds on which its pretensions rest are not so very subtle or
abstruse, so very strange or improbable. Surely it is very
intelligible to say, and that is what I say here, that Liberal
Education, viewed in itself, is simply the cultivation of the
intellect, as such, and its object is nothing more or less than
intellectual excellence. Every thing has its own perfection, be it
higher or lower in the scale of things; and the perfection of one is
not the perfection of another. Things animate, inanimate, visible,
invisible, all are good in their kind, and have a best of
themselves, which is an object of pursuit. Why do you take such pains
with {122} your garden or your park? You see to your walks and turf
and shrubberies; to your trees and drives; not as if you meant to make
an orchard of the one, or corn or pasture land of the other, but
because there is a special beauty in all that is goodly in wood,
water, plain, and slope, brought all together by art into one shape,
and grouped into one whole. Your cities are beautiful, your palaces,
your public buildings, your territorial mansions, your churches; and
their beauty leads to nothing beyond itself. There is a physical
beauty and a moral: there is a beauty of person, there is a beauty of
our moral being, which is natural virtue; and in like manner there is
a beauty, there is a perfection, of the intellect. There is an ideal
perfection in these various subject-matters, towards which individual
instances are seen to rise, and which are the standards for all
instances whatever. The Greek divinities and demigods, as the statuary
has moulded them, with their symmetry of figure, and their high
forehead and their regular features, are the perfection of physical
beauty. The heroes, of whom history tells, Alexander, or Cæsar, or
Scipio, or Saladin, are the representatives of that magnanimity or
self-mastery which is the greatness of human nature. Christianity too
has its heroes, and in the supernatural order, and we call them
Saints. The artist puts before him beauty of feature and form; the
poet, beauty of mind; the preacher, the beauty of grace: then
intellect too, I repeat, has its beauty, and it has those who aim at
it. To open the mind, to correct it, to refine it, to enable it to
know, and to digest, master, rule, and use its knowledge, to give it
power over its own faculties, application, flexibility, method,
critical exactness, sagacity, resource, address, eloquent expression,
is an object as intelligible (for here we are inquiring, not what the
object of a {123} Liberal Education is worth, nor what use the Church
makes of it, but what it is in itself), I say, an object as
intelligible as the cultivation of virtue, while, at the same time, it
is absolutely distinct from it.

10.

This indeed is but a temporal object, and a transitory possession;
but so are other things in themselves which we make much of and
pursue. The moralist will tell us that man, in all his functions, is
but a flower which blossoms and fades, except so far as a higher
principle breathes upon him, and makes him and what he is immortal.
Body and mind are carried on into an eternal state of being by the
gifts of Divine Munificence; but at first they do but fail in a
failing world; and if the powers of intellect decay, the powers of the
body have decayed before them, and, as an Hospital or an Almshouse,
though its end be ephemeral, may be sanctified to the service of
religion, so surely may a University, even were it nothing more than I
have as yet described it. We attain to heaven by using this world
well, though it is to pass away; we perfect our nature, not by undoing
it, but by adding to it what is more than nature, and directing it
towards aims higher than its own.